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J. H. DOOL ITTLE.

Making Clasps for Hoop Skirts.

Patented Nov 15, 1859.

Inventor: 4% ZZZWW Witn/e 85' as UNITED STATES A OFFCE.

JOHN H. DOOLITTLE, OF ANSONIA, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO WALLACE & SONS, OF SAME PLACE.

MAKING CLASPS FOR HOOP-SKIRTS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 26,144, dated November 15, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, JOHN H. DOOLITTLE, of Ansonia, in the county of New Haven and State of Connecticut, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Manufacturing Clasps for Fastening the Tapes on Hoop-Skirts and for Similar Purposes; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the annexed drawings, making a part of this specification, in which Figure 1, is a face View of a strip of metal from which the clasps are formed, said strip being partially operated on. Fig. 2, is a longitudinal section of the same, taken in the line .90, ac, Fig. 1. Fig. 3, is a detached face view of a finished clasp. Fig. 4, is a detached side view of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponing parts in the several figures.

The object of this invention is to dispense with much of the manipulation hitherto required in the manufacture of the clasps so that the same, at a certain stage of manufacture, may be fed much more expeditiously than formerly to the swaging or raising machinery and the latter enabled to be constructed or devised so as to work rapidly, commensurate with the speed of the feed, thereby expediting in a very great degree the process of manufacture.

The invention consists in perforating the metal strips from which the clasps are formed in such a way that the waste pieces or scraps as thev are technically termed, will be cut out from the strips leaving the blanks attached thereto so that the blanks may be fed continuously and rapidly to the swaging or raising machinery and, while attached to the strips, struck up or swaged in proper form and then detached therefrom.

To enable those skilled in the art to fully understand and practice my invention I will proceed to describe it.

A, represents one of the metal strips which constitutes the stock from which the clasps are made. These strips may be made in the usual way and they are passed between dies, or punched, or perforated, so that the'waste pieces or scraps will be cut from the strips, the form of the scraps being shown by the openings a, Fig. 1. This cutting out of the scraps leaves of course the blanks I), attached to the strips, for the latter are formed of such a width that a narrow margin 0, of the strip will be at each end of the blanks and serve to connect the same. This perforating or punching of the strips A, as described, forms the first part of the process of my improvement in the manufacture of the clasps.

The second part of the process of manufacture according to my invention, consists in feeding the perforated or punched strips A, to the swaging or raising machinery so that the blanks Z), while connected together, will be swaged into the proper form to produce the clasps as shown at (Z, in Fig. 1. The strips A, are fed continuously to the swaging machinery and as the former may be fed rapidly to the latter the work may be expeditiously performed. In fact an automatic feeding device might be employed and the swaging device operated much more rapidly than if the strips were fed to it manually. The finished clasps may each be cut from the strips as they are swaged by any suitable cutting device, the necks (a, which connect the clasps (Z, to the strips 0, being cut close to the ends of the clasps, see Figs. 3 and 4.

In the old mode of manufacturing the clasps the blanks are cut from the strips and each blank is fed separately and manually to the swaging device. It will be seen therefore that the manipulation consumes considerable time and the work is done comparatively slow. By the oldmode of manufacture, the clasps cost about five and a half cents per thousand. By my improvement, owing to the rapidly working machinery that is permitted to be introduced, the cost is reduced to about one half of a cent per thousand.

Having thus described my invention what I claim as new and desire to secure by Let ters Patent, is,

Manufacturing metal clasps for fastening the tapes on hoop skirts and for similar or analogous purposes, by cutting the scraps from the metal strips A, so that the blanks Z), will be attached thereto, and while thus connected, fed to the swaging or raising device and swaged in proper form to produce the clasps substantially as described.

JOHN H. DOOLITTLE.

Witnesses:

C. C. JAoKsoN, JOHN B. KELLoee. 

